There’s a poison in This Court that will Kill us All

I needed a good public domain photo of John Kennedy and ran a search. One of the returns was the 1960 Debate between Kennedy and Nixon.

An estimated 70 million citizens watched the first televised Presidential debate.

I watched the opening and marveled at the complex questions and answers.

Kennedy’s task was to convince his fellow citizens that he understood the separation of church and State and that he would follow the rule of law.Kennedy stated:

“…because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected President, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured — perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again — not what kind of church I believe in, for that should be important only to me — but what kind of America I believe in.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accept instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials, and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.“

I had a moment of cognitive dissonance when I read that Presidential Candidate Ted Cruz paid a visit to a “religious liberty conference” where he was introduced by a pastor who openly calls for the state to execute gays.

“I don’t want the talents of any American to go to waste. I know that there are those who want to turn everything over to the government. I don’t at all. I want the individuals to meet their responsibilities. And I want the states to meet their responsibilities. But I think there is also a national responsibility. The argument has been used against every piece of social legislation in the last twenty-five years. The people of the United States individually could not have developed the Tennessee Valley; collectively they could have. A cotton farmer in Georgia or a peanut farmer or a dairy farmer in Wisconsin and Minnesota, he cannot protect himself against the forces of supply and demand in the market place; but working together in effective governmental programs he can do so. Seventeen million Americans, who live over sixty-five on an average Social Security check of about seventy-eight dollars a month, they’re not able to sustain themselves individually, but they can sustain themselves through the social security system. I don’t believe in big government, but I believe in effective governmental action.” John Kennedy 1960

Listen to all of it. Hear the sound of reason and intellect.

King Arthur: Proposition. Right or wrong. They have the might. So, right or wrong. They’re always right. That’s wrong. Right?

Right.

“Jesus Christ is the king of the president of the United States, whether he admits it or not!”

If the goal of Kennedy’s assassination was the death of liberal democracy then it has nearly worked.

Most people don’t know that John and Robert Kennedy saw the Mafia as a threat to our democracy and both of them were working to prevent organized crime from infiltrating and corrupting the judicial system:

“As Attorney General, Kennedy pursued a relentless crusade against organized crime and the mafia, sometimes disagreeing on strategy with J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Convictions against organized-crime figures rose by 800 percent during his term.[16]

Kennedy was relentless in his pursuit of Teamsters union President Jimmy Hoffa, resulting from widespread knowledge of Hoffa’s corruption in financial and electoral actions, both personally and organizationally. The enmity between the two men was intense, with accusations of personal vendetta being exchanged between Kennedy and Hoffa. In 1964 Hoffa was imprisoned for jury tampering.[17] ”

There are dark forces in the World. The assassinations of three visionary men within years of each other — The lone gunmen are always called crazy and locked away. Except for Oswald who was offed by a mafia type. Could it have been a mafia hit. Isn’t interesting how organized crime is never in the news. Did it go away? The difficulty with having an imagination is that if one isn’t careful solid evidence is left unnoticed. What we do know is that since the deaths of King and the Kennedy’s there is evidence of a sickness in our system. We know that our web based news outlets are hit by waves of false news that somehow make it to the top and somehow become ‘real’ news. We know this is happening because we can see it simply by loading Yahoo and Bing and we can hear it when we watch Fox and CNN. We even get some of it from MSNBC. As the Stones said, maybe we did, when we discarded Kennedy’s vision of America as a civilized Camelot for the beastliness that we have now. Thank you for a thought provoking comment!

I was young, but I remember the debate…it was everywhere at the time. Every Catholic family had a pic of JFK on the wall…right next to the Pope. There was a reason they called it Camelot. A different era, for sure. Grace, charm, intelligent debate, real issues.☺ Thanks for posting.

Yes. He had to die. In retrospect it was our democracy they were gunning for–and considering our present state of corruption it’s easy to think they hit that target too. Thank you for your comment. It’s amazing how much thought a few concise words can incite. :0

I agree. I’m not anti-religion, but I am anti-politicizing religion. There’s a reason our forefathers built in separation of church and state. I don’t want anyone telling me how I should believe in or practice my religion, especially a bumbling boob of a politician. Cruz probably hasn’t prayed in years anyway, except for assistance getting elected. It sounds good on TV though, to some, I guess. Kennedy was one wise man, and those who say he was the last great President may be right.

I was going to call this post “Visionary people produce visionary leaders.”

How much more would Obama have accomplished if the people that elected him understood that the power of the President is constrained by Congress.

Every so often the mavens on the Right pop off about the ‘Imperial President’ which simply means that a Democrat is in the White House.

But that rhetoric has kept them in Congress for almost all of Obama’s term in office.

I think Kennedy’s rhetoric reflected the world view of his generation.

How does one emerge from witnessing the aftermath of the Holocaust without a profound awareness of human evil.

They saw the absolute worst we can do and decided to fight it by creating a government that would actively work to prevent a holocaust from happening here, in the U.S.

The idea that pure capitalism can hold human evil in check is absurd.

I loved what Kennedy said when he announced the space program:

“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

President John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1962, at Rice University, Houston, Texas

Who are we as a people?

If Donald Trump truly represents who we are as a people then Trump will be our next President and we will suffer accordingly.

In the meantime; all we have to so is look to history to see how a visionary democracy is imagined and sustained.}

Was there corruption and ugliness? Yes. But it wasn’t celebrated.

Kennedy and King were great leaders because they had masses of people who shared their vision of a better World for all people.

Certainly a different mindset now. It’s all about personal agendas and staying in office, to keep that cushy little office on Capital Hill. It’s a joke and the sheep just keep giving the shepherds what they want, much to their own detriment. It shouldn’t be about party lines. Decisions should be made with the betterment of us as a whole, not a handful of rich narcissists playing a game of Risk with us as the pawns. Sadly, I don’t see if changing anytime soon.

I am not following the debates of the current campaigns. But anyway, I love what you posted! Kennedy was a an amazing man. I love the Cruz’ quote that every president should begin his day on his knees.

Thank you Erika. The debates are a travesty. Cruz is a travesty. I had a conversation with a friend last night and her take is that the U.S. had a good run and now it’s over. Not much to do now but watch it disintegrate. I guess I’m OK with the idea of a nation losing power and prestige…but to watch it do so because it’s people are unable to reason or even to give any sign that they fully understand the words they use is what I find hard.Anyway…It is nice to see you having a good time with your blog and meeting people that I also admire. Thank you for your comment Erika.

Oh my, I understand what you mean. It is frustrating to watch this all and clearly see the the false game. Most of all because the newly elected president is supposed to support the nation and not harm it.
Thank you, Robert, it was amazing to meet them all! I am so thankful about it. I will do a big post tomorrow about all my two weeks in the States.

I think I read that post and it was wonderful. I really admire your decision to travel and meet people.

I’ve never watched the Kennedy/Nixon debate. I was floored that Nixon and Kennedy spent nearly 100 percent of their time at the podium discussing domestic and foreign policy…and both of them shared a common vision. That came through too.

I did not watch it either. What you are telling sounds amazing. What great role models! They identified with the goal of improving life for the people they were responsible for…. actually for everyone.

I think our leaders are modeled after us. In a Democracy people make choices, even when they don’t. Corporations were just as greedy then as they are now. The legal system was just as prone to corruption in 1960. People had less access to information but they somehow made tough decisions on complex issues. This is how I’ve come to understand the social role of leadership in a Democracy. I know that there are people who say that we are ‘not’ a democracy and that the U.S. has always been all kinds of sordid things and that is true. Human history is as sordid. As sordid as the Inquisition? As sordid as the holocaust. I’ve never understood people who think that a perfect nation of perfect people should suddenly appear out of no where and never have any of the flaws that afflict our entire species. I don’t understand people who think we should scrap the whole thing because we failed to end slavery when we issued the Declaration of Independence. Our species is evolving and as with all things our survival depends on our ability to adapt to the world as we’ve made it. Somehow the generation that elected John Kennedy got a lot of things right. Fully funded education, progressive taxation, and a government endowed with the power to enforce the Rule of Law, and a commitment to making a better world for their children.

Something happened and whatever it was threw us off.

If our leaders are a reflection of us then we’re not doing so at the adaptation thing…;)

I’d say money and power came ito the way. I go with that thought of reflection. We produce what we sow. Those people are provided for elecetion which seemed to be wanted by the poeple… first the poeple need to change in order to bring out great leaders. Because those leaders need the back of their people.